When Willie Comes Marching Home

It didn’t take long. Three days after the San Francisco Giants traded Willie Mays to the New York Mets in 1972, the “Say Hey Kid” smacked a home run in his first game with the Queens-based ball club—a solo blast securing a 5-4 victory over his former team on Mother’s...

The Dandy Dominican

As San Francisco morphed into the headquarters for counterculture, with the intersection of Haight and Ashbury becoming as well known to hippies as that of Hollywood and Vine to fans of show business, Juan Marichal fired fastballs for the Giants, a team transplanted...

What if…

What if… Charlie Finley hadn’t broken up the 1970s Oakland A’s dynasty? Bob Uecker hadn’t appeared in Major League? there was no Designated Hitter position? the Mets had never traded Nolan Ryan to the Angels? Yogi Berra had played for the...

The Last Eagle

Once upon a decade—the one that introduced Elvis Presley, car tail fins, and McDonald’s franchises—a ballplayer blessed with speed, grace, and athleticism rivaling Orsippus’s climbed to the apex of baseball, popular culture, and media. The year was 1951....